Shayla Love is a staff writer at Psyche. Her science journalism has appeared in Vice, The New York Times and Wired, among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Habits and routines
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Is it better to live in ‘clock time’ or ‘event time’?
Do you stick to a set schedule, or have a looser relationship to the clock? It can affect more than how you plan your day
by Shayla Love
Death and dying
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Why so many of us see our loved ones after they have died
These experiences – which are more of an illusion than a hallucination – can be a healthy part of the grieving process
by Shayla Love
Mind and brain
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What is it like to remember all the faces you’ve ever seen?
They’ve been studied by researchers and recruited by police forces, but what’s it actually like to be a super-recogniser?
by Shayla Love
Emerging therapies
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Could that tingle down the spine be a way to rediscover joy?
In new research, scientists have looked into the potential benefits of giving people with depression the aesthetic chills
by Shayla Love
Worry and rumination
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Should you confront your worries or try to banish them?
Psychotherapists have long believed it’s a bad idea to suppress worrisome thoughts, but new research is prompting a rethink
by Shayla Love
Dissociation and detachment
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The therapeutic potential, and addictive lure, of losing yourself
In ketamine therapy and other contexts, dissociation is seen as an unwanted side-effect. But what if there’s more to it?
by Shayla Love
Psychosis and schizophrenia
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Rubber hand illusions shed new light on our bodily sense of self
Testing the illusions on those who have entered altered states offers clues about the experience of being in control
by Shayla Love
Thinking and intelligence
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Innovative three-year-olds expose the limits of AI chatbots
New experiments show that very young children are better at solving creative puzzles than ChatGPT and other AI models
by Shayla Love
Forgiveness
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Must you forget to forgive? A scientist tests the relationship
Forgiveness is colloquially linked with fading memory – but research is probing what it really means to let go of wrongdoing
by Shayla Love
Childhood and adolescence
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At what point does the Santa myth become a harmful deception?
Exactly when and how children discover they’ve been duped makes an important difference to the revelatory experience
by Shayla Love
Sleep and dreams
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How to embrace being a lark or an owl
Skip the advice about training yourself to rise early or burn the midnight oil. Your natural rhythms are your best guide
by Shayla Love
Decision-making
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Stereotypes might not be as powerful as psychologists assumed
Research on first impressions suggests that people’s behaviour can trump any biased assumptions we might make about them
by Shayla Love